by Meara Platt
Her eyes lit up, their soft green shimmer drawing him in along with her smile. “Yes, it must be. Well done, Brynne! But how are they related to you? That’s the mystery we must solve.”
“There is no relation, just as my birthmark means nothing. No wolves, dark or otherwise.” He returned his thoughts to the young Lettie and the day she’d rescued him. Once the boys had been chased off, Lettie had taken out her pretty lace handkerchief with the initials LB embroidered in pink thread on one end and a pink butterfly on the other, and used it to gently wipe the blood off his cut lip. And his scraped knee. And his bruised knuckles.
And his muddied face.
How could he not have loved the girl ever since that moment?
She graced him with another smile that struck like an arrow straight through his heart. “Brynne Ernest Rowan Tarbolton.”
“No.”
“I have it! Brynne Elspeth Randolph Terrwilliger.”
He leaned his head against the black leather squabs and groaned. “Elspeth? Seriously? Elspeth.”
Chapter 3
Lettie tried her best not to stare at Brynne as the carriage bounced along the well traveled road to Wrexham. They’d spent a most pleasant evening in Preston with her uncle, although Edward Falconer wasn’t really her uncle, but her father’s cousin. However, they were close enough in blood relation and he’d always been a part of their loving family, so she couldn’t think of him as anything but that... or a pirate, which is what she suspected had been his occupation before turning to the church.
“Brynne, how long do you think it will take before we reach Wrexham?” The day was cold and raw, but the threatening gray skies had remained just that, threatening and no actual snow or rainy sleet to slow their journey. A little colder and they would have had a blizzard, but there was too much dampness in the air today so it wasn’t likely.
“I don’t know.” He glanced out the window. “I’ve always considered conversations about the weather deadly dull.”
“I think we’ll have rain,” she said with a grin, challenging him to call her dull. “A heavy, driving torrent carried by the wind as it crosses the salty ocean and sweeps into the green valleys of Wales.”
He laughed. “Feeling poetic today, are we?”
“Since you ask, actually no. I’m feeling quite lost.”
He turned to face her, leaning forward as he frowned in concern. She loved that about Brynne, how his first thought was for her comfort. “Because of those wolves and roses, Lettie?”
She nodded. “But you seem to be lost in your own thoughts today, even more than usual. Would you care to share what you’ve been thinking about?” She gazed directly at Brynne, but he quickly turned back to stare out the window as he had been for most of the ride.
She’d pushed too hard.
But she wanted to know what he was thinking, and hoped he was thinking of her. As always, her thoughts were all about him. “I remember a little about Wrexham from my studies. Our tutor insisted that Eugenia and I learn something about England and thought it much more important than teaching us how to play the pianoforte or dance a waltz. I’m glad he did. I enjoyed our history lessons. Although I didn’t pay as close attention in class as you did. You immediately recognized what those roses represented.”
“You would have as well, once you separated their significance from your wolves,” he assured her.
“Perhaps. I still find it confusing.” She sighed. “Did you know that Wrexham is an old market town at the crossroads between Wales and England?”
“Yes, Lettie.”
She asked more questions, but he merely gave one word answers until he didn’t bother to answer at all. She ceased her attempts to make conversation. She was trying to be helpful. Why did he insist on shutting her out?
Roses crept into her thoughts again.
And again, until the image of roses became annoyingly persistent.
And then the wolf appeared again.
Jeremiah, stop it! What did roses have to do with wolves? “I wish you’d just tell me or leave me alone,” she muttered under her breath because her guardian angel was being insufferable. Why didn’t he just go back to Beresford and bother Eugenia?
He’d always liked her better anyway.
Brynne leaned forward and chuckled. “Right then, are you talking to me or Jeremiah?”
“Him.” She grimaced, knowing how much Brynne hated it whenever she mentioned said insufferable and often unintelligible angel. “But I’m quite normal in every other respect,” she thought it important to remind him. “I can’t help it if I hear things or see things that others can’t. Have you ever considered the possibility that I’m not daft but have the sight?”
“No.” He arched a dark eyebrow and cast her an almost imperceptible grin. “First of all, you are most certainly odd–”
“Others consider me unique.”
“– if not quite daft yet. But that will come with age, I’m sure.”
An indelicate snort escaped with her laughter. “You’re an ogre.”
“Second of all, if you do have the sight, then why are you so terrible at cards? Indeed, you’re the worst cards player I’ve ever encountered. You don’t know how to bluff. I can tell your hand by the way you move your nose.” He surprised her by reaching out and tweaking her nose.
“You do not!”
“You wriggle it like a rabbit wriggles his. One wriggle for a good hand. Two for a bad hand. Three when you’re holding a pair of aces. Four when–”
She tossed her reticule at him. “Fine, I shall never play cards with you again.” But her mirth faded the moment the words were out of her mouth, for she realized that she wasn’t ever going to do anything with Brynne again. He would be out of her life within hours.
“Oh, Brynne!” She scooted to his side of the carriage, determined to sit beside him even though he was big and his shoulders so broad that he took up most of the space. She threw her arms around his waist and hugged him tightly. Her breaths were short and ragged as she struggled to hold back tears.
She inhaled the tantalizing scent of him, salt and spices and soft ocean breezes. His wonderful scent. “Never is an unbearably long time.”
He refused to hug her back.
She felt his muscles tense. He certainly had a lot of them. “I’m sorry, Brynne.”
She blushed and moved back to sit across from him, already missing the heat of his big body pressed against hers, even though she had been doing all the pressing while he’d been wishing he were anywhere but trapped in the carriage beside her.
She picked up the blanket that had slipped to the floor when she’d leapt to his side and tucked it around her legs once more. “Truly sorry. I’ll do my best to control my daft impulses when in your presence. You bring them out in me. You know that, don’t you?”
“My fault. I’m in foul humor today.” He glanced out the window and then banged once sharply on the roof to signal their driver. “There’s an excellent inn just over the next hill. Stop there,” he called to the driver.
“Aye, Master Brynne. I know it well.”
As the coachman stepped up the pace, Brynne eased back and met her gaze. “Are you hungry, Lettie?”
“Not very,” she said, now staring at her toes. Brynne had a way of looking at her, his expression a mix of heat and protective affection that always confused her. At times, she sensed that he liked her as more than a friend. But he was also eager to leave England and start a new life, one that did not include her, so she couldn’t be that important a friend.
He, on the other hand, meant everything to her. How could she manage a bite when he was about to walk out of her life? “But I don’t mind if we stop. You need to keep up your strength for your sea voyage and the monsters and storms you’ll encounter when you sail to the edge of the world.”
He sighed. “I’ll be sailing to Charleston harbor on a well built schooner that will be accompanied most of the way there by several English frigates.”
She wanted to say m
ore about his voyage, but Jeremiah was still forcing images into her head. Wolf. Roses. Battle.
Not just any battle, but a big, bloody one with bodies of knights and foot soldiers, dead and dying, strewn across a green field that was now stained in hues of red. Her heart pounded in alarm. Perhaps the clue about the War of the Roses wasn’t meant to take them back in time. What if it was meant to warn of hazards that lay in Brynne’s future?
Was Brynne headed toward danger?
Was Brynne going to die?
****
The rain started as a misty drizzle at first, but was coming down in buckets by the time Brynne stepped down from the carriage and assisted Lettie into the bustling Towton Inn. The scent of stew, possibly a lamb stew, assaulted his senses in a good way. He was hungry, and the aroma of that stew and freshly baked bread, still hot from the ovens, mounted a second assault on his senses. In a deliciously good way.
The innkeeper, a thin and harried-looking man, came rushing up to him as though he were someone of importance. The earl’s carriage had fooled him, no doubt. “Mr. Fenwick at your service, my lord,” he said while bowing and scraping and rambling on about every amenity offered at his inn to a respectable gentleman and his wife.
Brynne knew by the subtle glances he was already receiving from the serving maids that the inn also offered their gentlemen guests certain amenities that were decidedly not respectable. Discreetly offered, of course, for this was one of the better inns along the road to Wrexham.
But men were men.
And business was business.
“My lord, your wife must be cold and tired,” the innkeeper continued, fixing his attention on Lettie whose pert nose and soft cheeks were an adorable pink from the cold.
“She is,” Brynne spoke up before Lettie had the chance to blurt that they weren’t married, just traveling together, a circumstance that would get them promptly kicked out. His stomach growled. Damn it, he was hungry and wanted whatever the inn’s kitchen had to offer. Food, that is. Not the accommodating female staff.
Lettie was the only woman who interested him.
To his relief, Lettie simply smiled and nodded to the innkeeper. She then placed her hand on Brynne’s forearm so that he could escort her into a private dining room where they would be away from the more boisterous crowd in the common room.
“I’ll have Meg fetch you some ale. Or would you prefer coffee or tea, m’lady? It’s raw weather today. You’ll be needing a room if the rain doesn’t end soon. Between the melting snow and now this downpour, the roads will be thick with mud and impassable.”
Lettie once again smiled her sweetest smile. “That would be wonderful, Mr. Fenwick.”
Brynne glanced at her. Was she referring to the hot drink? Or sharing quarters with him... which wasn’t going to happen. He’d sleep in the stable. Or in the carriage. Or out in the rain.
He’d sleep anywhere that Lettie wasn’t.
His stomach growled again.
This time it was his hunger for Lettie that stirred his craving. He watched with ravenous interest as she arched her shoulders and removed her gray woolen cloak to reveal the gentle curves of her body hidden beneath a forest green gown. Her gloves and the small feather in her hat were the same forest green. But he wasn’t looking at her gloves or hat.
He was looking at her body and the graceful way it moved beneath that woolen gown.
She was the only thing he wanted.
And the one thing he could never have.
He shook off the discouraging thought. This was precisely why he had to leave England, to get as far away from Lettie as possible.
He shrugged out of his wet cloak and then set his cloak and hers on hooks beside the hearth to dry. Mr. Fenwick had stoked the fire to a roar so that the room was now warm and the dampness gone from it. Lettie came up beside him and held her small hands close to the fire to ease their chill. She’d removed her hat and gloves and left them on a nearby chair.
The top of her head barely came up to his shoulder.
She was so slight and slender, and yet he felt himself yielding to her. Unbidden, his body leaned toward hers so that her shoulder almost grazed his arm. He caught the scent of lavender soap on her skin, light and fragrant, not at all overpowering.
But then she didn’t need to use force or fists or feminine wiles to conquer him. She had defeated him long ago with no weapon other than her gentle smile. He glanced at her and saw that her lips were pursed again. “What’s on your mind, Lettie?”
She stared into the fire’s glow, the reds and golds of her neatly bound hair shining as they captured the fiery light. “I saw a bloody battle. What do you think it means?”
He shrugged. “Nothing.”
“It must mean something. A terrible fight took place.”
“Very well, it’s a premonition of me kicking Jeremiah’s ass.” He didn’t believe in angels, but Lettie certainly believed in them. He also knew she wasn’t daft, although he’d teased her about it earlier. Perhaps she did have the sight. That seemed to be the most logical explanation, if visions and conversations with unearthly beings could ever be considered logical.
“Don’t tease me. I saw men sprawled across a blood-slicked field. Some dead and some wounded. I know it is somehow connected to you.” She edged closer and looked up at him, her expression revealing everything that was in her heart.
He felt his resolution waning. One caress. One kiss. No one would be harmed. “Lettie, I–”
Mr. Fenwick and Meg, the serving maid, marched in with platters of stew, hot bread, mulled wine for him, and coffee for his wife.
“Will ye be needin’ anything else, my lord?”
“No, Mr. Fenwick.” He hadn’t bothered to correct the man about his proper title either. They would receive better service as long as the man thought he was someone of importance. “You’ve taken quite good care of us.”
Brynne escorted Lettie to her chair and took the one opposite hers, relieved that the width of the small table now separated them.
The innkeeper and Meg finished setting out their plates and pouring Lettie’s coffee. “Then I’ll leave ye to yer privacy.”
They were about to shut the door behind them when Brynne called after them. “Keep the door open.”
The pair appeared surprised. “As ye wish,” Mr. Fenwick said with a shrug and shook his head, his thoughts obvious. No man in his right mind would give up a chance for privacy with a young woman as beautiful as Lettie.
“You could have let him shut it,” Lettie said, frowning at Brynne when they were once more alone.
He eased back in his chair that felt too small to accommodate his big body. “No, I couldn’t.”
She rolled her eyes. “I wasn’t going to ravish you the moment the door closed behind us. I’ve been brought up as a lady, you know.”
“I know.” He took a bite of his stew and found it quite delicious. He took another, but he wasn’t looking at his plate. His gaze, assessing as a hawk’s, was trained on Lettie.
“You do?” She opened her sweet lips and took a bite of stew.
“It isn’t you I’m worried about.”
****
Lettie coughed, swallowed hard, and swallowed again. Her eyes grew wide and she grabbed Brynne’s cup of mulled wine and gulped it down. Mercy! He was referring to himself, afraid of what he might do if left alone with her!
So, Brynne had a heart after all.
And he was afraid of losing it to her!
She considered leaping out of her chair and twirling about their cozy, private dining room while she bellowed a victory chant. But she was a lady, after all, and it wouldn’t be seemly for her to put on such a display.
Nonetheless, she felt a warm, conquering pride steal into her heart. In truth, she felt warm all over because she’d drained that cup of wine much too fast and she’d never done anything like that before. “We were together for hours in the carriage. You didn’t appear concerned then.”
His dark eyes gleam
ed as hot as embers. “It was different.”
She tried not to melt under the smoldering heat of his gaze. “How?”
“No one was referring to you as my wife.”
“I see.” She heard the ache in his voice, the same helpless ache she’d felt for years. “It sounded nice, didn’t it? As though we were destined to be together.” She wanted to reach out and take his hand, but knew by the tense shift of his body that his control was about to snap.
She wanted the stubborn man to lose control, but not here and not now. He’d never forgive himself if he kissed her here.
He’d be too angry and disgusted with himself by the time they reached Wrexham. She knew him well enough to understand what would happen then. He’d drop her at Aunt Frances’ door and ride off without ever looking back.
So, as eager as she was to be in his arms, to feel the heat of his lips on hers, she backed away.
Indeed, she physically pulled away, scraping the floor with the chair legs in her haste to rise. “Jeremiah says they make an excellent plum pudding here. I’ll catch Meg’s eye and ask her to bring us some.”
She had taken no more than a step before Meg herself rushed in carrying the very dessert she had just commented on. “I set aside some of this pudding for you before the wolves in the common room devoured it all. Mrs. Fenwick made it for the inn’s better guests.” She turned toward a cluster of noisy men seated on benches beside several large kegs of ale, and frowned when one of them burst into loud song. “Drunken louts.”
“Is Mrs. Fenwick the cook here? She’s very good,” Lettie said. “The stew was heavenly. Both of us thought so.”
As she engaged the maid in idle talk, Brynne rose from his seat and now stood by the window with his arms crossed over his chest while he glanced out of the fogged panes. “Has the rain stopped?” she asked.
He didn’t immediately answer.
She continued to look at him, awaiting a response, and took the opportunity to study him while he stared out the window. For the first time, she noticed that his clothes were well made, but surprisingly simple. Brynne never wore bright colors or added frills to his collar and sleeves. His jacket was a dark, coal gray and his trousers were a lighter gray. His cravat was a dark forest green, almost the same color as her gown.